Mary Edgar Moulton

For quite a while, I've been thinking about the lack of interesting information about our family that because of general laziness continues of be a lack. So tonight with all sort of other things that should be done -- I'm going to try to gather a few anecdotes.
 

Let's say a few things about my Grandmother (Mary Edgar) Moulton. She always said she was born under the Brooklyn bridge or near where the Brooklyn bridge was going to be built. She also tells of the seeing, at age three, of Lincoln's casket as it passed by in New York. We'll have to check these dates sometime as we know she was born in 1858. We know she had to have moved to New Haven Conn. sometime because my mother was born there on March 22 in 1888. (This was only 9 days after the blizzard of 1888 started --- but that is another story)  She used to tell the story about herself as a little girl remembering her grandmother Elizabeth Herbert who had a real English accent and who was very proper  --- The Story : She said that her brother and she told her grandmother to "Hopen the window and let in some Hair" and the elderly Elizabeth Herbert (later Corder) replied "Ush Hup you Himpudent ussey". While it isn't so very funny, it is the only quote I have from my maternal great great grandmother, my daughters' great, great great grandmother and my grandson's great great great great grandmother.
click on picture for larger image	According to my mother, Mary (Edgar) Moulton was a very domineering woman and a rather stern task master as well as a rather proud person who didn't wish people to know she didn't have a college education. Later on, when she came to live and eventually die at our home in Ardsley, New York, she had mellowed considerable although she showed a spark now and then.
One very warm day, when she was in her eighties and living with us she walked down to the village of Ardsley while we were all gone and purchased a quart of ice cream. She really liked ice cream. She took a taxi back up the hill and when she went to open the door of the the house she found that she had left the key inside. The ice cream was starting to melt. She had no spoon. A walk around the house showed that a small cellar window was open. Without a bit of hesitation, she climbed up, in the window, down on to the washtubs and into the cellar. She really liked ice cream --- maybe that is why she weighed almost 200 pounds.
	The Moultons were living near or in Westchester Village in the Bronx when Frances (Moulton) Morse met Robert J. Morse, but after that they moved out to Queens Village around 1918-22 where 43 years later I worked for the YMCA only about 3 blocks from their home (I'll look up the address again.) At one time Grandmother (Nana) was the president of the women's Auxiliary at S. Gabriels church where John went to private school many years later (John Morse her great grandson).
William Moulton (Sr. ) liked to be up to date and soon after Model T Fords became available, he purchased one and took the whole family for a ride -- over the Brooklyn bridge and into Manhattan. They were doing fine until they got to Broadway and 42nd st. where a policeman directing the traffic stopped the cars, including the Moulton's headed East on 42nd. The car stalled so Grandfather jumped out and cranked it to get it going and when he got in to go, the policeman had stopped the East bound traffic again. It stalled again and the procedure was repeated. By this time , the traffic was backed up all the way to 8th street. The policeman was angry, Grandmother was mortified and the rest of the family huddled down as far as they could in the meager seats. Finally, the policeman in complete desperation held up all the traffic and walked over to grandfather saying with a real Irish Brogue --- "Ef yer ever get that tin lizzy goin again, take it back to the ferm and keep it there". My grandmother was a proud woman. ( I really would have liked to have seen that.)

 

In her later years in Ardsley, she often kept things a little calmer around the house because my mother (like her) was a very busy woman and didn't always have time to see to the needs of my brother and myself. She always enjoyed cards and my father used to play pinochle with her at least three evenings a week. (On Tuesdays and Thursdays he had choir rehearsal). She also made friends with some of the elderly neighbors who in turn had friends and they formed a group called the "Gaylots" who played bridge. I think she was the oldest though not by much. One of the funny things I remember happening was when a roller skating arena opened up and sent the Gaylots an invitation to come skate free for a trial guest day.  The ladies didn't go --- but they enjoyed being asked.  I remember though that the Gaylots rented a cottage at Milford beach Conn. for two weeks one summer and Mother , Frank and I (we were in high school) went to chaperone. It was fun because another member of the group had two daughters who were only about ten years older than we.

While grandmother was really very little trouble -- it seemed to me Mother used to get rather upset because her brothers and sister (mother's) used to come visit and be entertained and then leave Grandmother ten or twenty dollars. Grandmother would be so pleased -- but mother used to say -- "I take care of her day after day and she never seems so pleased with me"  Needless to say, Grandmother didn't have any funds except "enough to bury me". This was before Social Security and life insurance wasn't too popular either. There were few pension plans in those days too.